Fishing for Snakes?

One of my tweets/statuses this week was this: If I asked God for a fish, why do I keep picking up snakes? It comes from the scripture in Matthew 7 where Jesus says that God will give us the good things that we ask for. He compares God to our earthly fathers. If we ask our earthly father for bread, will he give us a stone? Of course not. If we ask him for a fish, will he give us a serpent? Unthinkable. In the same way, if we ask God for something good, he's going to give us something good.

However, I seem to have a problem believing this promise. I ask God for things often. Some things I have been requesting for many months or years. Sometimes it seems that God is not answering my prayers.

When this happens, I tend to look around to see if I can "find" God's answer. I go rooting around through the dust and dirt, finding "snakes." These are answers that are obviously not God's will for me, but what I think will satisfy my desire.

Picking up those snakes is no fun. Not only do they fail to satisfy for long, they also inject a little poison into my life. Yuk! Why do I keep picking them up?

This reminds me of another story in the Bible: that of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar. God promised Abraham that he would be the father of many nations. Problem was, God was taking a mighty long time to give Abraham and Sarah a child. Sarah got worried. Maybe God wasn't going to give her a child! She had to do something, right?

Sarah worried so much that she asked Abraham to try to have a child by her servant, Hagar. (I suppose Sarah figured that God wouldn't notice the difference between her child and her servant's child.) Abraham did what Sarah asked, and he fathered a son, Ishmael.

Of course, this wasn't God's plan. God planned to bless Abraham through Sarah. He was just waiting until Abraham and Sarah were too old to have children. (God never explains why He did this. I suppose it's not our place to know at this point.) And, in the proper time, Sarah did have a child, Isaac.

Now enters the snake analogy. Ishmael is Abraham's son. Isaac is Abraham's son. One is the son of a servant, the other the son of the free woman. A million difficulties arise, especially since Ishmael is the FIRST BORN son. Yikes! Now Sarah has to get rid of the snake that she picked up. You can read more about that in Genesis 16, 17, and 21.

In my life, I want to avoid picking up snakes. If I am praying for something, I want to be sure that I wait for it. I don't want to get so impatient that I try to make circumstances fit my request when they don't. I know that if I trust God and wait on him, I will receive what is best for me: a fish, not a snake.

Freaky Friday

Something strange happened Friday. I don't know why. Maybe it was because of the nasty weather, or maybe because most of the less well-behaved children were in In-School Suspension. In any case, on Friday, most of my students were actually sweet to me. They spoke to me like I was a human being. They asked me about my weekend plans. They listened to me when I talked to them. It was great!

This weekend I have done very very little. I put together lesson plans yesterday, but I have not even touched the stack of papers I have to grade. I stayed up until 1:30 (old time) last night randomly surfing the internet. I wasn't even enjoying it that much, I just didn't want to go to bed.

This means that this week I am going to have to work like crazy to catch up. (Yeep!) On top of that, my church has a meeting almost every night this week.

But there is one bright spot. We get out on Thursday and Friday for professional development and the AEA meeting. Neither of which I have to do. Yay for days off!

OK, I'll bring this rambling, non-informative blog post to a close.

Grown-Up Bullies

I will never understand some people.

Today I experienced an act of veiled vindictiveness. This is from a person that I barely know, but for some reason doesn't like me. I happened to see her today. She began to talk to me (which was odd, because usually she pretends I don't exist). I realized why she was talking to me after I heard what she had to say. She mentioned some publicly known circumstances that might put my job in jeopardy in the future. She didn't say it outright, but it was clear to me that she was exulting in the fact that I might lose my job.

You know, I prefer that people who hate me just let me know outright. These little digs and jabs are incredibly stupid. Who are they trying to fool? Are they planning to deny they said anything wrong? Who's going to accuse them? Not me.

My master plan has always been to totally ignore hurtful comments. My observation is that if a bully knows she is getting to you, it makes her work harder. But if she thinks that no one notices her little innuendos, she gets deflated and quits.

What do you do when people cut you with nasty comments?

Education

I don't understand the U.S. education system.

I thought it would get clearer as I learned more about it, but in fact, it has become more and more confusing. In addition to being confusing, it seems to be just plain stupid at times.

One example: the federal government (and to some extent, the state government) really pushes technology. They even pay for most of our technology (smartboards, calculators, subscriptions to web educational services). However, we don't have enough people working on our technology to set it up and keep it working. I suppose there's no money for that; I'm not sure. So all this lovely technology ends up being practically useless because it's not working.

Another example: the state is trying to get students to make gains on standardized tests. That's good. But in their effort to improve education, they ask us teachers to complete scads of paperwork. When are we supposed to do all this paperwork? We already spend hours outside of school getting lessons together and grading student work. I can probably speak for most teachers when I say we just throw something together at the last minute to turn in. Does this help the students? Not likely.

Most of the projects they ask us to do are good projects. The sheer number of them, however, overwhelms. I have often said, and I will stand behind this, that only a superperson could complete everything that a teacher is asked to do.

Honestly, the state and federal government could improve education by encouraging families to stay together. Nothing too drastic, perhaps make divorces harder to get? I suppose it would be too much to ask for our government to take a moral stand. In the meantime, the educational system is being pulled in seventeen different directions, none of which is going to improve education.

Why I Can't Write an Interesting Blog Post Today

Maybe I should blog on Friday nights instead of Sunday nights. On Fridays my head is buzzing with the events of the week, but by Sunday, I have mellowed into a perfectly relaxed person who is content with letting things be. And being content is not a good beginning for writing anything.

The creative process germinates in restlessness. At least it's that way for me. It's those times when I would rather be punching someone that I can really write something good. When I am perfectly happy, my writing is perfectly bland.

This is probably why the most creative people are also some of the hardest people to understand. They seem to be driven to create by some kind of inner turmoil. The examples are endless: Van Gogh, Poe, Mozart, Picasso - all of these creative geniuses were, shall we say, crazy.

I'm not saying that I'm a creative genius in any way, but perhaps I do have something in common with these people. For me, getting my frustration out through creating something helps me deal with anxiety and stress. Maybe it is the same for them.

What helps you to be more creative?

A Control Freak's Poem

Control
I will it to be mine.
I give myself all things,
And they are mine.

Control
Pleasing is my goal:
To please you and you and you,
And myself too.
I feel myself stretching thin thin
Thin like a balloon with too much air.

Control
Where is my control?
I am angry, sad, and stop stop stop!
I did not mean to say that to her!

Control
I don't think I have it.
I think that all these people
Are pushing the buttons
On my remote.

Control
Who is in charge here?
I think I know now;
It's not me.

Control
God is in control.
This sparrow cannot fall,
This daisy cannot wilt,
Without his knowledge.

I am a bird of the air;
I am a lily of the field;
I am no longer in control;
I trust in my Maker.

Saving My Day

I have a melancholy temperament. This doesn't mean I'm sad all the time, but I do tend to easily fall into bad moods. When a bad mood hit me, I used to wallow in it, but lately I've learned to do some self-examination that helps me feel better.

I did this last week. It was the end of the school day, and I was in a black mood. When I realized that I was upset, but didn't know specifically why, I began to rewind through my day to figure out what exactly went wrong. I finally narrowed it down to something the principal said to me earlier in the day. From there, I decided that it probably wasn't intended to hurt my feelings, and that I should probably not let it ruin my day. After that, even though I still felt bad about that particular thing, I was able to segment it off from the rest of my life, and move on with a better attitude.

Knowing the reason why I am sad, upset, or angry has helped me to address the issue specifically. It also keeps me from blowing up on other people because I have failed to deal with my own problems. I don't know when or why I started doing this, but I highly recommend it.

You may have been doing this all along, and wonder what kind of weirdo I am. I'll just admit that I am way more likely to ignore my feelings than to address them. For me, this is a big step.

Do you have any other strategies for dealing with bad moods? (Well, besides eating chocolate.)